I think I already know the answer to this question but..Will all characters made in the open beta be wiped at launch day?

Yes, I'm sure they will. The advantage of the Open Beta, obviously, is that you get a feel for the game, get to explore some of the areas, and find out for sure how much you will like it - without paying.

If you want to keep that sense of discovery and newness, then you can always not play in the Open Beta. After all, it's not like you can't find out any information about the game from the web.

Regarding the schedule, I've maintained that the next patch would be the soon, and that OB would start approx Oct 25, to give them 3 weeks of OB before the game launch on 11/15. IMHO, they are going to launch prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, to ensure it's on the shelves for Christmas. I saw on the worldofwarcraft.com boards that the devs mentioned the next patch was "in a few days" so I believe that proposed schedule is holding up (patch this week, patch week of the 25th, OB on 25/26th, 3 weeks of testing, including one more patch, shut servers down 11/15, launch 11/17 or so).

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In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.

So can someone explain how this works for a total noob? Does an open beta mean that anyone can download the beta version of the game and play it during the beta period? What are the typical restrictions?

So can someone explain how this works for a total noob? Does an open beta mean that anyone can download the beta version of the game and play it during the beta period? What are the typical restrictions?

To answer your questions: Yes and absolutely none at all (generally, as everybody can play).

Keep in mind that it's something like a 2 to 3GB download.

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"All opinions posted are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled."

And unless it has changed for Open Beta, it'll be through BitTorrent. So if you own a router, you better know how to open ports, or expect a very slow download.

Since there's no point hiding the truth, I'll say that I can no longer play Beta. I was banned. And I learned a valuable lesson: Nobody, no matter how long you've known them, is completely trustworthy. From what I understand, you're allowed to let friends use your account. There's no NDA or anything, so I don't see why it would be any other way. Well, that's what I did. I let someone use my account. When he started playing far too often for my tastes, I blocked him from the account. So what does he do? He goes and gives the illegal/unoffical servers my CD-Key so they can get the game. I had no idea this was going on, but one day, I found my CD Key was banned, a few *months* down the road, my actual account was banned. Woo. So from this point on, no one gets my account info for anything. I don't care how good of a friend you are.

On the bright side, there's no risk of me burning myself out now. Unless I can actually get into the open beta.

Ah well, release is just around the corner. And it feels good to get that off my chest >_<

So can someone explain how this works for a total noob? Does an open beta mean that anyone can download the beta version of the game and play it during the beta period? What are the typical restrictions?

Blizzard has stated that there are going to be "signups" soon, and nobody quite knows what that means. If it's Open, then typically anybody who wants to can get in. Perhaps they are requesting people to sign in so they can be emailed CD Keys or something, I dunno. Anyway when the sign ups go live, I'm sure it'll be posted here.

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In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.